surveliiance

Question 1

Strength: other forms of surveillance

Answer 1

Researchers have identified other forms of surveillance, including actuarial justice and profiling

Question 2

strength: Focaults work

Answer 2

Foucault’s work has stimulated research into surveillance and disciplinary power – especially into the idea of an ‘electronic Panopticon’ that uses modern technologies to monitor us.

Question 3

weakness: Goffman

Answer 3

Foucault exaggerates the extent of control. For example, Goffman (1961) shows how inmates of prisons and mental health hospitals resist controls.

Question 4

weakness: people’s behaviour

Answer 4

Surveillance may not change people’s behaviour as Foucault claims. For example, studies show that CCTV may fail to prevent crime because offenders often take no notice of it.